Second Nature
by Sentimental Star
Summary: **COMPLETE** Peter’s idea of “saving it for later” was a little different from Edmund’s…--Brotherfic. Book and Moviebased.--


**PLEASE READ BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE:** Please note that I am _not_ condemning homosexuality or anything similar in the story below. At the time that the Pevensies are living (1940s England) homosexuality is severely frowned upon. _That_ is why Kerry, the bully in this story, reacts the way he does, and it is not, in any way, shape, or form, how I feel about homosexuality. Please be aware of that, and enjoy it for what it is—Peter standing up for his beloved younger brother :grins:.

**WARNING:** Messiness, emotion, and some _very_ sensitive issues—please be advised, and perhaps have a box of tissues well at hand.

_**Disclaimer:**_ I own nothing in this marvelous universe; it all belongs to C.S. Lewis and Walden Media.

_**Author's Note:**_ Dedicated to _**The Grey Phantom**_.

_**Rating:**_ T/M (for sensitive issues)

_**Summary:**_ Peter's idea of "saving it for later" was a little different from Edmund's…(Brotherfic) (Book and Moviebased) (_NO_ Slash)

"_**Speech"**_

_**/Personal Thoughts/**_

Peter's Age: 14

Edmund's Age: 11

Sisters' Ages: 13 (Susan) & 9 (Lucy)

_Timeframe: Almost Immediately Following_ Prince Caspian

_Second Nature_

_By Sentimental Star_

**Second Nature**

There was little to say when they stepped through Aslan's Door in the Air and onto the hot, smoky platform of the train station. Oh, Edmund pretended to be annoyed—for a few minutes—about the loss of his torch. He'd actually deliberately mentioned it (otherwise he wouldn't have said a word) because he wanted to get a laugh out of Peter, and a grin out of Susan.

And it had worked—for a few minutes—but then it became clear that neither Susan, nor Peter, was really in the mood for jokes, and by an unspoken consensus, both he and Lucy agreed they would not bring up Aslan or Narnia unless Peter or Susan did first.

Incidentally, neither did. The knowledge, however, was there, and it was tangible.

Strictly speaking they were still at least half their Narnian selves, and less than a quarter schoolchildren preparing to return to school for the first time since the evacuations. The other quarter was somewhere in the middle—not quite royalty, but not quite children, either. Edmund supposed they would have to get used to that feeling again—it had been a perpetual state of existence for him (and his siblings) for the past year. It had disappeared for a while when they were in Narnia, but had returned in full force now that they were back in England.

"I'm buying a soda," Edmund announced softly, standing up from where he had been sitting on the bench beside Peter. He tugged on his older brother's hand, wordlessly requesting the older boy to join him. "Su, Lu, did you want anything?"

As Peter slowly stood up, Lucy shook her head with a small smile and took Susan's hand. "I'm all right, Ed."

Susan said nothing and Peter didn't either. Worried, the two younger siblings exchanged glances over their heads. As Lucy curled her hand into Susan's, Edmund touched Peter's shoulder, glancing briefly into his eyes, before starting to lead the way towards the vending machines at the other end of the platform.

Peter followed without a word.

Halfway across the platform, they ran into trouble. Or rather, trouble ran into them. Literally.

Before Edmund quite knew what was happening, something solid and quite big slammed into his side, sending his slight figure careening backwards into Peter behind him.

"Sorry," he whispered, feeling Peter's hands grab his shoulders to steady him.

His brother merely shook his head, and regarded the burly boy looming in front of them with an even gaze. "Can I help you, O'Loughlin?"

Kerry O'Loughlin was the leader of the gang of neighborhood bullies Edmund ran with before Narnia. When Edmund returned from the countryside (and Narnia) irrevocably (and almost unrecognizably) changed, Kerry, as well as Kerry's mates, took every opportunity they were offered to provoke the Pevensie brothers into a fight.

It nearly always worked. Peter, typically quick to anger as a teenager, had an even shorter fuse than he used to, on edge from being exiled from Narnia (or so he had seen it then). And Kerry had the uncanny ability to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time.

Edmund got involved because of Peter.

Of course, at that point, they had been out of Narnia for a while, and were unsure whether they would ever return. Now, however, they had just come back, and Kerry received rather a nasty shock:

"If you'd excuse us…" Peter even bowed slightly and started to steer them back into the flow of traffic on the platform, keeping a firm grasp on Edmund's shoulders.

It was clear Kerry didn't know how to react to Peter's suddenly very level head, and virtually nonexistent temper. He hesitated for a fractional instant, and then lashed out in one of the only ways he knew how, "A little tight on the apron strings there, Pevensie?" snapped nervously.

Peter drew them to a halt, and turned to coolly regard O'Loughlin. "And what does it matter to you whether they are or not?" he asked softly.

Another fractional hesitation and a slightly unhinged jaw to boot. Kerry barely managed to recover himself, "What does it matter?" he sputtered. "It matters. It's _unnatural_. It's _wrong_. What are you, queer? That you go about hugging him, and kissing him," added with undisguised disgust, "at any given moment, without caring who's there to see?" Kerry's face turned decidedly uglier as he noticed Peter's hands tightening on Edmund's shoulders to the point where their knuckles were almost white, "What's the matter, Pevensie? Afraid he'll _break_?" He sneered, and reached out to grab Edmund's chin (who straightened, and glared at him with all the dignity he could muster as O'Loughlin twisted his head). "He _is_ pretty, in any case. A little _too_ pretty if you ask me. Someone should mess him up."

That finally got a rise out of Peter. But not the one O'Loughlin had expected. Or wanted: "Yes, he's pretty," stated softly. Dangerously so. "He's _beautiful_. And I _love_ him," Peter's jaw locked as he firmly yanked Edmund back against his chest, "because he is worth more to me than the gold of any crown."

Edmund chose that singularly inopportune moment to blush. Fiercely. "Pete…" he murmured, pressing a hand to his cheek.

Peter's arms tightened into a hug and he pulled them away without further word.

O'Loughlin let them go.

IOIOIOIOIOI

It took a good five minutes before Edmund could look at Peter properly. He hardly knew what to say, and knew barely what to make of it. "Peter, what on earth…" he murmured faintly.

Peter sighed, and tucked Edmund under his chin where they stood in an isolated alcove close by. "You told me to save it for later. I did. Maybe not how you envisioned it, but…" He shrugged shyly.

"Blockhead," Edmund muttered fondly, bashfully nuzzling into his brother's chest. He was sure he would be permanently blushing for quite a while.

When a shaking hand tangled in his hair, Edmund glanced up sharply. "Pete?"

A trembling arm crushed him to Peter's chest. "Too close," whispered into the younger man's hair. "That was far, far, _far_ too close. God, that frightened me."

Baffled, and irritated _because _he was baffled, Edmund snorted faintly as he pulled back to look at him. "Frightened? _You_, frightened? After fighting a Hag, dueling a usurper, and leading an army? Peter Pevensie…!"

"Edmund, considering you're the most precious thing in my _life_ at the moment, I think I have every _right_ to be frightened!"

"Peter, of all the ridiculous…" Edmund trailed off at the raw look he was met with. For several endless seconds they merely stared at each other until the younger boy finally blew out a long breath and, stretching from the balls of his feet, leaned up to catch Peter's cheek in a tender kiss. "Idiot," he whispered, sinking back onto the ground.

When Peter's arms enveloped him again, Edmund shushed him, smoothing the hair back from his brother's face as Peter nestled his head in the crook of his neck.

"Are you all right?" Edmund finally asked when the worst of the older boy's tremors were through, voice hushed.

Peter's grip on his waist tightened. "Apparently not," the younger man muttered when he received no other response.

An awkward second passed while they stood there without any further words exchanged, Peter still curled against Edmund and Edmund unsure how to comfort him. Finally, he dropped his hands to his sides with a sigh before lightly starting to push at his brother's shoulders. "Pete, we can't stay here."

"And why can't we?" the demand was muffled against Edmund's neck.

Amused despite the circumstances, he pointed out with a small grin, "Because the girls will start wondering where we are. Not to mention our train arrives in about…oh, fifteen minutes."

Peter's head shot up and his nose nearly collided with Edmund's chin. "_What_?" he demanded.

The younger boy chuckled slightly and stepped back, gently holding him at an arm's length. "You heard me. Come on, we can cuddle all you want when we get there," this last part added as a good-natured jest.

Peter didn't laugh. Instead, he tenderly took hold of Edmund's chin and kissed him on the forehead. "I'll hold you to it, then," he advised softly.

For some reason, that response only worried Edmund more.

IOIOIOIOIOI

By the time they bid the girls goodbye and stepped onto the train, Edmund decided—in Peter's words—that he had every _right_ to be worried.

Peter hadn't said a word. At all. He'd just kissed each of the girls, pressing Susan's hand a moment (while Edmund and Lucy discreetly chose to look elsewhere), before climbing onto the train ahead of Edmund.

With a last promise of letters, Edmund had given each of his sisters one final hug before swiftly grabbing his suitcase and scrambling onto the train…only to collide with Peter who had been waiting for him just inside the threshold of the door.

"Where's the fire, Ed?" Peter's amused voice brought a scowl to Edmund's face as his brother steadied him, but as it was the first the older boy had spoken in well over half an hour, the scowl that came out was rather half-hearted.

"Up your bloody arse, you great lummox!" he snapped, more out of nerves than annoyance.

Peter only laughed softly, briefly pressing his fingertips to Edmund's cheek, before turning and leading the way down through the narrow passage between train compartments.

An extremely anxious Edmund hurried to catch up as the train began to move, firmly attaching himself to Peter's side when he reached him.

His older brother knew what he was doing, and grinned faintly at Edmund when the younger boy tightly grasped his arm. "Now who's mother-henning?" he teased weakly.

Edmund just set his jaw and firmed his grip on Peter's arm. At the very end of the car they came to an empty compartment and Edmund slid open the door, pulling Peter in after him. "In here," he responded tersely.

With a gentle push, he forced his brother to sit on one of the seats inside, taking his suitcase before Peter could protest and stowing it overhead with his own. Firmly pressing his brother's knee, Edmund crouched down in front of the older boy until they were eye level.

Peter chuckled lightly. "I'm not going to break, you know," he advised softly.

Edmund stared hard into his brother's eyes. "Really? Because right now it doesn't look it."

Peter opened his mouth to object, but no sound came out.

"I know you better than anyone, Peter Pevensie, and you're far from all right," Edmund countered tightly. "What's gotten into you? And don't say O'Loughlin because he has nothing to do with this."

"I wouldn't say he has '_nothing_' to do with it, Ed," Peter responded lightly.

Edmund scowled, unamused. "Peter, if you'd just--"

Peter cut him off by curling both hands into the fabric of his sweater and pushing his forehead into the crook of Edmund's neck.

"Just let it go, Ed," Peter's voice was as damn near begging as it ever had been, "_please_."

The younger boy's arms came up to wrap fiercely around his shoulders. "You're so sodding _stubborn_," he hissed into his brother's hair.

Peter merely turned his face further into his neck, seeking the comfort he _knew_ was there.

"You bloody mule," Edmund muttered thickly and not quite steadily, feeling the heat radiating off his brother's forehead. The feverish skin was a belated reaction to both the spectacular duel Peter had fought with Miraz, and the intense battle that followed immediately afterwards. Knowing that, however, did nothing to stem Edmund's worry, and damned if he let another second pass without doing everything in his feeble power to help.

A kiss to the burning forehead sealed the promise, and in spite of the rivulet of moisture that slid down his jaw, Peter smiled.

_The End_


End file.
